From about 1892 until 1894 Lambert worked as a station hand, mustering and shearing sheep, building fences and breaking in horses. Working from dawn to dusk every day he gained what he later described as an ‘incised set of pictures’ in his head, ‘as fresh in their colour & definition as they were at the time of their inception’.

Between 1894 and 1899 Lambert made many drawings for the Sydney Bulletin, and painted images of Australian life conveying the prevalent nationalist mood.

In 1896, at the age of 23, Lambert had his first major success when A bush idyll was purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 1899 he was awarded the Wynne Prize for landscape painting for his work Across the Black soil plains.